Cyan touts CyPortal advances as steps toward software-defined networks

Cyan introduced the CyPortal in May of last year as part of a move into the provision of software tools and services that complement the company’s packet-optical transport systems. The cloud-based software-as-a-service offering enables carriers to provide their customers with a view into service performance for SLA assurance and verification. The tool has proven popular; approximately two dozen carriers are using CyPortal in connection with more than 20,000 wireless backhaul and business service endpoints, Cyan Vice President of Marketing Frank Wiener tells Lightwave.

To improve CyPortal’s utility, Cyan designed the tool to work not only with its own packet-optical transport platforms, but with network elements from other vendors. The list of vendors other than Cyan with products (27 in all) compatible with CyPortal has grown from 2 to 11, including:

• Accedian
• ADVA Optical Networking
• Ciena
• Cisco
• MRV
• Omnitron Systems Technology
• Overture
• RAD
• Telco Systems
• Transition Networks
• Transmode

Cyan has also expanded CyPortal’s capabilities. Users can now not only use the service to monitor the performance of the network services for which they’ve contracted, but launch operator-approved tests on these services (for example, RFC 2544). And the range of services CyPortal will accommodate now includes not only Ethernet, but IP and ATM as well.

In the future, CyPortal also will enable operator customers to provision services and bandwidth, Wiener says. He declined to reveal when this capability will roll out. Meanwhile, Cyan customers are using open APIs to customize CyPortal for their networks. Billing-related programs have proven popular, Wiener said by way of example.

At least one Cyan customer has endorsed the new features. "Our customers, especially wireless operators, are demanding increasingly rigorous SLAs as well as the means to monitor them,” said Jack Roberts, vice president of sales for Atlanta-based USCarrier, via a Cyan press release. “It is no longer acceptable to learn that SLA commitments were violated a month or two after the fact. They want to learn about, and take steps to correct, SLA violations the instant they occur. Services like CyPortal allow us to get out in front of that trend."